Goodbye, Night Vale
by HuggbeesLady
Summary: Carlos believes he's on the brink of discovering the truth behind Night Vale. It has something to do with Cecil. But it soon becomes clear that someone doesn't want them to find it out.
1. Chapter 1

The sun rose above the small desert town of Night Vale, the town where time doesn't work and the Dog Park is meant only for mysterious hooded figures. It was hot and dry- it always was. Some of the horrible monstrosities which soared in the night sky went back to sleep in the underground, others just woke up. Other beings, that you or I might call "people" started going to their jobs, or hobbies. Old Woman Josie was knitting a sweater for one of the angels, people were staring at the sky, hoping that sun might hide the horrible void for a change, and several annoyed secret policemen stood in the street looking for an excuse to take someone to "reeducation". Just another Night Vale day. The city hummed with life like the many huge beasts that lived in it.

And Cecil, the local radio announcer sat on a green, oozing chair in the break room with a pile of papers, a homemade totally-not-a-pen and a small cup of coffee. Today was his day off, but a REAL journalist's job was never done.

"'Drink something refreshing…' 'in such a warm summer you should…blah…blah' " He mumbled to himself, reading out loud bits of the advertisements his sponsors sent to him with a baffled look on his face. "Hm, advertisement agencies today are so disconnected from the common man, I mean, how can anyone understand that?"

He shook his head and took his totally-not-a-pen and made the usual repairs. "'Inside, you feel hated, you feel like'…" he said while writing" 'the eyes of the fire… The white of the bones…' "Suddenly his phone began to ring a familiar song; he almost threw the pages across the room.

"Carlos?" Cecil asked gleefully.

"Hi, uh, remember how we said we'll go to a movie today?" Carlos said from the other side "Well, I…"

"You need to stay in your lab again?" Cecil asked sadly

"Uh-"

"No, no, I understand, I mean, you have an important job" Cecil sighed to himself. This wasn't an unfamiliar topic "I…I'll see you…next week, maybe?"

"Actually, I need you right now." Carlos said "I'm working on something."

"Really?" Cecil said, excited "a… "Science" thing?" he handed his papers and totally-not-a-pen to a passing intern "Charlie, can you finish this for me?"

"Well, yeah" Carlos said "I have a new theory regarding the str- interesting things happening around here, but I need to check something."

"So, I'm your… test subject" There was a dark playful tone to Cecil's voice

"No! Well, sort of-" Carlos checked some of his notes again " think that it would be best if I explain it to you when you get here."

"I'll be right there!" Cecil said.

"And remember, this isn't a date, Cecil. This is an important scientific research" Carlos said, then heard a ringing at the door "We both need to act like mature professional adu-" Carlos opened the door and there stood Cecil. He was holding a very large bouquet of red roses and smiling a very wide smile

"How did you get here so-" Carlos started asking, then just chuckled "Put those next to the others" He kissed him on the cheek and pointed toward the long shelf filled full of vases and similar bouquets Cecil had brought him since they started dating.

Some of them were just normal flowers, others were black or dark purple with green dots, or glowed in the dark, or looked and smelled just like the heads of dead goats. Scientifically, those were interesting specimens that he was lucky to research; personally he thought that it was very sweet of Cecil.

They went into a part of Carlos' lab that was filled with printed notes, graphs and empty coffee mugs. Cecil sat on a small wooden chair, Carlos on a swivel chair, his cheap laptop on his, well, lap.

"So, just to be clear," Cecil said and then his voice turned dark. "Is this the kind of test that will twist my body in several dozen horrible, horrible ways that will make me curse this world for bringing me such pain?"

"Uh, right now it's just a questionnaire" Carlos said. He turned his laptop toward Cecil for a moment to show him.

"Awww…" Cecil sighed in disappointment.

""Anyway," Carlos tried to put on his best no-nonsense face "Cecil, would you define yourself as an ordinary Night Vale citizen?"

"Well…" Cecil looked away for just a second "While I am a bit of a radio personality, I must admit I never thought about myself as someone special. I'm doing a service to the community, that's all."

"Okay." Carlos typed frantically "Question number 2, how many times have you actually left the greater Night Vale area"

Cecil struggled to remember for a bit "Just once, in my trip after college to Europe. I talked about it on the radio, but it was a few months ago." He smiled "It was lovely"

"Huh, I thought it was a…" Carlos stopped himself

"What?"

"Cecil…" Carlos got up and put his hand and Cecil's shoulder "All of those countries you mentioned don't exist"

"That's all?" Cecil rolled his eyes "It's probably just another case of accidental dimensional transport while flying. It happens"

"Yes, I guess it could…" Carlos was still up, pacing back and forth in the space between his chair and Cecil's "OR it could relate to my new theory"

"And what is that?" Cecil asked

Carlos face lightened up, figuratively, of course, not like that time someone accidently summoned Suymatish : the Burner of Faces into Night Vale. "Well, you know how there's a lot of different stuff going on in Night Vale?" Carlos learned a while ago that using the word 'strange' only brought raised eyebrows "Glow Clouds? Hooded Figures? Man eating librarians? I managed to get some samples… with some difficulties" he pointed toward a series of jars on a different table "They're more similar then I expected; I think it's all coming from one source!" Carlos started getting more and more excited "There's some sort of an… energy signature. It's the same with all of the samples and it's the same all over Night Vale!" He handed Cecil some graphs, even though he knew he wouldn't really understand them "But! But they seem to be a lot stronger in some places" He pulled out a map, marked with several purple circles "Places that you tend to visit"

"Well, Night Vale IS a small town, most people visit the same places" Cecil… wasn't sure why he was trying to argue against Carlos' theory. He looked so happy about it.

"I mean mostly places like your apartment and the radio station" Carlos pointed out

"And your bedroom?"

"Well, I haven't actually checked there" Carlos blushed "But considering the pattern we see here and, um…"

"So you think I'm emitting a lot of this energy?" Cecil took a closer look at the map

"I don't think it's exactly 'emitting' it. That was my first guess, but the patterns are very strange. I'm not sure yet what's going on" Carlos shrugged "But I do think that-"

He noticed that Cecil was now staring at the nearest window.

"Am I boring you, Cecil?" Carlos said "I'm sorry; it's pretty interesting for me"

"No! No! It just…" Cecil pointed toward the window "we're being watched"

From outside the window, three slightly overweight men wearing a very poorly made tree costume, short capes, blowdart chestbelts and balaclavas could be seen, trying to shoo away a few birds.

Cecil winced and whispered "I think we should at least pretend to be scared, it's common courtesy. They clearly worked hard on those costumes"

Carlos nodded, he learned to question those kind of things later, and they both quickly crawled toward a table close to a wall "I guess I should've expected that someone would be interested in my research" Carlos shook his head "At least it's just those clowns. For now, at least."

"Yeah, the quality of the Sheriff's Secret Police has been seriously deteriorating" Cecil frowned "I am SO going to address it in my next station editorial; it can't go on like that"

"Anyway" Carlos whispered "my theory was –"

At this point a small blow dart flew, apparently through the wall, and hit Carlos in the neck. He quickly collapsed on Cecil's lap

"Carlos! Oh no! No, this can't happen! Not now – not-" Cecil stopped his panic when he saw that Carlos was breathing, albeit slowly "Oh, it's just a sleeping dart." He paused for a second "But when did the secret police start using SLEEPING darts, instead of poi-"

And that's as far as he got before he got hit with a dart of his own.

Although nobody else noticed it, the city trembled. Things might never be the same.


	2. Confirmation Bias

Carlos couldn't open his eyes, he couldn't lift his head, everything in his body ached. He could hear sounds though, sounds that slowly turned into voices and then into words.

"And how are things going with our guy?"

"He… He's resisting."

"Our guy is **resisting**?"

"Yes, ma'am, it's weird."

"That never happened before, why now?"

"I… think it's the outsider."

"The outsider?"

"Yes, ma'am, I think… our guy…wants to protect him"

"Argh! That fool!"

Carlos, now a bit more focused, opened his eyes, and after a few attempts, lifted his head. He was tied to a chair at a small school desk. In front of him there were two people. One was a heavily built male, and the other was a much taller women. That was the most he could tell about them as everything else was covered by black suits, gloves, and a mask that showed only the eyes, which were hidden by large sunglasses.

"Oh, he's awake finally," the woman said, turning to her partner. "Go. I can take care of science boy on my own."

Carlos looked around, the room was, he realized, weirdly… cozy. It was well-lit, the walls were a warm orangey color, the floor was covered in wall-to-wall carpeting, there was a long table next to the wall covered with pictures of smiling children and small trinkets, and out of the corner of his eye he could see a colorful poster of a kitten hanging from a tree branch, wearing a black mask and sunglasses, with the caption "Hang in there! (No, not you)".

"That's a nice interrogation room you have there." Carlos tried to move a bit in his chair.

"Oh, please! Surveys discovered that most interrogators felt that the 'Dusty, Dark Old Dungeon' image was just creating a negative atmosphere and hampering job performance," the woman said. "Besides, have you ever tried to work in the dark while wearing sunglasses?"

The heavily built man then entered the room holding a piece of paper. "Another fax from the boss, ma'am."

The woman took the paper, read it and sighed, adding it to a rather large pile of identical papers.

"Thanks, Jim." She turned towards him. "Can you believe that? The guy's dating the news announcer and he doesn't even know about the redesign we did here!" The two turned toward Carlos.

"You don't listen to your boyfriend's show, kid?" Jim asked.

"It's always on in the background," Carlos replied, wondering why he was trying to explain this to people who had spied on him, sedated and kidnapped him, and were probably going to torture him. He was spending too much time in Night Vale. "I just...get distracted sometimes."

The two interrogators just looked at each other and chuckled.

"Of course you do," the women said.

"By my work! I mean by my work!" Carlos blushed. Yes, he really needed to get out of Night Vale for a while.

"Yes, about your work..." The woman became serious. "Jim, go back to the fax machine and keep me updated." She then turned toward Carlos. "Now, you're probably wondering why we brought you here…"

"Ah, not really," Carlos said. "You're afraid that I'm getting too close to some truth about the town so you kidnapped me." He sighed. "Really, I should've expected something like that a long time ago."

"Man! I wanted to say that all threatening and ominous-like and you just ruined it!" The woman kicked at nothing in a rather childish manner. "Oh! But it doesn't matter! You know why it doesn't matter?" She leant forwards. "Because you still don't know WHAT we're going to do to you. Do you want to know what we're going to do to you?"

Carlos swallowed, he shook his head.

"Well, you're lucky because we have no idea either!" the woman said in frustration.

Carlos could have thought of several different reactions to that statement, but he figured "WHAT?!" would do.

"I mean, when you two got here, I got a message from the higher-up." She went to the large pile of paper and pulled out the bottom sheet. "The standard stuff, you need to be killed in horrible ways, your body should be buried in an unmarked grave in the Sand Wastes, every record of your existence should be terminated...you know?" She shrugged. "But suddenly, I got another message!" She pulled another sheet from the pile. "Now I have to 're-educate' you? And then another one!" She pulled out a few more papers. "Now you need to be dealt with 'minimal damage'? Or I need to convince you to leave Night Vale? Or I need to lobotomize you? Or kill you again? I just don't know what to do! And these messages just keep coming!"

Jim entered and delivered another sheet of paper. "Another massage, ma'am," and then suddenly turned around to the sound of the distant fax machine starting up and ran from the room.

The women picked up the paper and read. "And this one just says 'RUN RUN RUN. GET AWAY FROM ME AND THIS PLACE.' And then some scribbled drawings of eyes…and then 'RUN' some more!"

Jim returned with a new fax. "And this one says…" She winced, "I don't think I can even read this one aloud in public."

The sound of the fax machine was heard again. Jim ran.

"Jim, don't bother to bring me every single fax!" she shouted after him. "Bring them in bulk!"

She threw the faxes on the floor. "Look, we're sorry about the delay. I know we're disorganized today, but it's never happened before! We promise that, if you end up with both of your lobes mostly intact, next time we'll put you in one of the deluxe chambers and give you free shock therapy." She waited for a response from Carlos. "Look, I just want our costumer's first impression to be a good one. We've never had this kind of problem before!"

Carlos wasn't really listening, he was thinking. His memories of what happened before he was knocked out had been very fuzzy, but started to quickly return. Now he remembered _when_ he had been knocked out. He thought that it was when he came up with his theory. But now he recalled that it was later. He was with –

"Cecil! Cecil! Oh no! Where is he? You didn't take him too, right?" Carlos started to struggle, which caused his chair to slightly rock from side to side. "I hadn't even had a chance to tell him my theory! You don't have any reason to – oh what I am saying?" He stopped struggling and sighed. "If you haven't captured him he'll probably burn down half the town trying to rescue me." He then started struggling again.

"Ah, Ma'am?" Jim entered, with a huge pile of papers. "The... the higher-up is really going nuts! The room is overflowing with faxes!"

"Again, really sorry, that's never happened before." The woman made a small wave and started to leave the room.

"Wait! Wait!" Carlos cried out. He started thinking again. "If my theory is correct…then your bosses' indecisiveness must be..." Carlos' eyes widened in terror. "Stop!"

"Oh, what now?" The woman stopped.

"Okay. Listen to me," Carlos said as slowly and seriously as possible. "If I'm right, then Night Vale is in danger. You have to let Cecil go!"

The woman chuckled. "Nice try. But that's really not going to work."

"But..." Carlos said as they closed the large metal door behind them.

"Can somebody hear me? I need to save Night Vale!" Carlos struggled harder, and his chair shook from side to side so much that he felt slightly disoriented. "Hello! Someone? Hello? Help! This is serious! Possibly more than ever! I-"

Another shake and Carlos found himself and his chair falling to the side.

For a split second, as he was falling, he saw something else, instead of the room. Something covered in blood and bright smiling shapes. But by the time he hit the very real carpeting, it was back to the usual Night Vale weirdness. The absolutely real Night Vale weirdness.

"Hello? Anyone?" He shouted again, his cheek pressed against the carpeting. "Is...is this it?" He added quietly

Suddenly, he heard the sound of the door opening and a very familiar voice.

"Carlos?" Cecil asked. He was standing in the doorframe, outside of Carlos' field of vision. "I heard shouting. I… CARLOS!"

"I'm fine, Cecil," Carlos said. "Don't worry, I just need someone to untie me."

"I'm so glad you're alright!" Cecil started untying the ropes. "I mean, I was in the room next to you also tied to a chair and completely alone it was weird I guess they really are slipping I'm going to write a letter of complaint and they better give me free shock therapy or something next time I'm here and then I heard shouting and it was you and I assumed the worst and then I ran into your chamber and you're okay!"

"I'm glad you're okay, too." Carlos got up and smiled and then stopped himself. "Wait… you just ran out? You said that you were tied up like me!"

"Well…I… I suppose I wasn't tied up very well." Cecil could feel that he was sweating. It felt like he was struggling with something, but he wasn't sure with who or why. "And the ropes just slipped off when I heard you shouting. And I guess that the door was slightly open."

"Maybe…." Carlos said, not really believing it. "But it could relate to my theory again."

"Oh, really?" Cecil said, getting closer.

"Yeah, but I'll have to tell you later," Carlos whispered, going towards the door and peeking out at the hallway outside. "Right now, Night Vale could be in danger."

"So, we'll go to your lab," Cecil whispered, as he tried to peek out too. "And then," he sighed, "back to the station for me. Someone needs to update the people of Night Vale about this new crisis."

"No, this time you need to stay with me," Carlos whispered. "I need you if we want to save the town."

Cecil let out a small squee.

"Shh!" Carlos checked the door again; the coast was clear. "Come on!"

They snuck out quietly. At the end of the hallway there was a metal ladder that led to a valve door in the ceiling. No one was around; all of the interrogators apparently were busy working elsewhere. Sometimes a loud shriek of pain was heard, startling Carlos. But other than that everything was going smoothly.

This was going to be easy. Nothing could stop them from climbing up the ladder, getting back into Night Vale and finding out-

Suddenly, in unison, all the doors behind them opened and people wearing suits, black masks and sunglasses started chasing them. Not even questioning who they were or whether or not they should be caught.

"Wha-" Carlos started to say, before he remembered that there would be time to investigate this later and right now they needed to run.

The ladder, that just a few seconds beforehand was only a couple of steps away, was now far, far away at the end of a long hallway. But they eventually managed to reach it and started climbing as fast as they could. Their pursuers just stared at the ladder in confusion, as if they were not sure what their next orders were supposed to be. Cecil and Carlos didn't stick around to see if they'd made up their minds, but instead climbed up the ladder and locked the valve door from the outside.

It was afternoon, almost evening. A sign next to the door read:

"Totally absolutely Not a Secret Entrance to the Abandoned Mine Shaft! What? Did you think that this was the entrance to the Abandoned Mine Shaft?! Pfft! Please… You seriously need to get your eyes checked. Or better yet, check yourself into a mental hospital. Because when you're seeing things that aren't there – like, just for example, this being a Secret Entrance to the Abandoned Mine Shaft, you're obviously crazy! Actually, now that I think about it, mental hospitals are such a bother – you should just walk away from society and live in some cave for the rest of your life and deteriorate into cannibalism. And when future archeologists find your bleached bones they will be able to tell with but a glance that you were an insane fool who thought that this was a Secret Entrance to the Abandoned Mine Shaft when this was clearly not! You poor fool!"

"Oh, too bad. If this was a Secret Entrance to the Abandoned Mine Shaft, it would mean that we're not that far from Night Vale," Cecil said with a completely straight face. "But, as it says on the sign, it's clearly not."

"Heh…sometimes…" Carlos was panting, "sometimes…Cecil…heh, even I…heh…can't tell if, heh, you're being sarcastic or not." Carlos tried to catch his breath and then said in the kind of voice you use when imitating someone you don't like, " 'No, Mom, you don't get it! Why should I care about gym at all? I'm going to be a famous scientist and when is sport ever going to come up then?' "

Carlos then sighed. "Cecil, did you ever get the urge to take your Middle School self and just…throw him across the room?"

"Well, as part as the Night Vale High School graduation ceremony-"

An explosion was heard behind them.

They spun around and saw Night Vale. The ground was cracking up, the skies above it were black and seem to be dripping some sort of goo. Screams were heard, buildings seem to have grown to bizarre sizes and proportions and some of them were clipped onto the other, like a bad video game glitch. People were walking on air in an infinite loop of jerky motions. Some huge tentacles could also be seen.

"Oh, no!" Carlos said "It's even worse than I thought. Looks like I was really right!"

"Really?" Cecil said, and looked around his city. "What makes you say that? I don't see anything unusual."


	3. Theories

AN: Before we start this chapter, I have an important message to all of my readers out there: Don't start writing fics for ongoing works unless you're sure you can keep posting chapters at a fast rate. "Yellow Helicopters" and "Cassette" were great, but they pretty much wrecked the entire plot of this fic (and yes, I had everything planned). I agonized a bit on whether to try and fit the events of those last two episodes with the plot, or to just keep doing it as I planned and call it an AU. I think I'm just going with the latter. Trying to tie it in with the show, while possible, would be needlessly complicated and would just ruin the mystery of "Cassette". So this is a different AU, the "Yellow Helicopters" and "Cassette" episodes don't count in this realm and I hope that in spite of my lack of ability to deliver these on time, you'll still find my story enjoyable. I might use some ideas from those episodes in the story, though… (Also, this chapter is super long, to make up for the wait)

"And none of this seems _stranger_ to you at all?" Carlos asked, as they ran into the chaotic town. He tried to stop and catch his breath again, but had to jump aside when a huge slimy tentacle burst from the ground. Say whatever you wanted about his cardiovascular condition, but living in Night Vale had done wonders for his reflexes.

Cecil looked around, searching for something unusual. "….I guess so many events happening at once isn't something that occurs every day but-"

At that point he had to stop, because Larry Leroy (out on the edge of town) was flung toward them by some unseen force. They dodged Larry, and he landed on the sidewalk without a scratch, although the sidewalk itself seemed a bit dented.

"Um, Larry?" Carlos asked, worriedly while slowly backing away.

Larry's head turned 180 degrees; he hissed and lurched toward them. They dodged him again, and again he landed on the sidewalk. This time Larry seemed to be affected by the blow and just lay there, jerking while bleeding a weird black substance.

"Well, I don't remember him ever doing that before," Cecil said without much alarm. The ground beneath them shook. "You have a plan, right, Carlos?"

"If my theory is correct, then just you being here should fix things up." Carlos smiled. The ground shook again. Carlos looked worried

"Maybe… maybe it takes time," Cecil said.

"Yeah, maybe." Carlos wasn't entirely convinced. "We'll go to my lab; I have some stuff there that can help us."

The ground shook again, then violently ripped apart to reveal a swirling nothing with rows of sharp teeth.

"And by 'go', I meant 'run'," Carlos said. "Again" he added to himself, bitterly.

They started running, avoiding the holes and spikes that kept popping out of the ground, as well as the occasional resident of Night Vale who kept being tossed in their way.

"So Carlos, you haven't told me your theory yet," Cecil said and dodged a small child that exploded into something gooey and sticky before hitting the ground.

"Oh, yeah, sorry," Carlos said "you see-"

A weird buzzing noise was heard, and from the corner of their eyes they could see the Glow Cloud slowly approaching, leaving behind a trail of dead animals.

They turned a corner, and watched until the cloud was out of hearing, under the assumption that a large, glowing, mind controlling cloud had the same hearing range as a human being.

"So, as I was saying-" Carlos said, quietly.

But then a swarm of flies attacked them. Well, maybe "attack" was the wrong word, since the flies didn't seem to do any harm. They just gathered around Cecil and Carlos in a cloud thick enough to prevent them from talking, as just opening their mouths a little would make them choke on dozens of flies. The flies kept swirling around them as they kept running until the cloud was so dense that Cecil and Carlos had problems breathing. Then the flies just scattered off for no apparent reason, looking slightly ashamed.

Carlos spat out a few flies. "Hmmm..." he mumbled, thinking to himself. Then he shouted "ANYWAY MY THEORY IS-"

The sound of shrieking sirens was heard, and driving on the slowly disintegrating road as if nothing was wrong, was a black van with dark windows - which everybody knew belonged to the Sheriff's Secret Police.

"Cecil and Carlos! You are meddling in affairs beyond your permitted levels of knowledge!" shouted someone from inside the car. "On orders of the City Council, you are to be sent to re-education. We have you surrounded!"

Several other cars popped out, circled around Cecil and Carlos, and out of the cars came a seemingly impossible amount of baklava-wearing officers, government agents in black suits, a few familiar citizens (although Carlos could've sworn that most of them had been flung at them a few minutes ago, and looked a lot more injured when they hit the ground), and even some of the angels, clad in their usual angelic robes.

"If you get out willingly, you'll…um… you'll…" a mumbling was heard from the main car, "…get a… a lollipop!"

Carlos dragged Cecil into an alleyway created by one building flying in the air and crashing into the other.

"Listen, Cecil," he sighed. He felt like a bad boyfriend for having practiced this speech in his head, but as much as he wanted to see Cecil's blind loyalty to the various shady organizations that ruled Night Vale as just an endearing quirk, he always knew that one day it would be at odds with Carlos' job. He just hoped that Cecil would understand him, that they could work it out, that it would go better than the worst case scenario Carlos' brain kept imagining. "I know you're not going to like it at first, but…"

However, to his surprise, Cecil grabbed him and looked at him with a very serious and concerned expression on his face.

"Oh, dear Carlos, I think your theory might be more right then you thought!" Cecil moved from concern to fear. "Night Vale is falling apart! I'm sorry, but we'll have to defy the City Council. For the greater good of the city!"

"Umm, I kinda expected you..." Carlos mumbled. Now he felt like a really awful boyfriend. "...never mind..." Those kinds of problems would be settled when Night Vale was safe. Well, as safe as Night Vale was usually.

"The Sheriff's Secret Police would never work with the angels! Because they're not real! And if they were, they would never work for the City Council!" Cecil continued in a panicked tone. "Whatever did this can rip apart reality to try and capture us!" As Cecil spoke, Carlos realized that the town's chaotic streets were slowly turning back to their usual selves and the cars were disappearing.

"And it clearly doesn't like it when you try to talk about your theory."

"The good news is-" Carlos added, then noticed that the street being stabilized wasn't the street he expected, but one closer to the lab, "-that we don't need to worry all that much anymore. My theory is right! You're stabilizing the town!"

Cecil looked back in surprise and suddenly Night Vale seemed to shriek. It glowed in a variety of quickly changing colors and started to disintegrate again.

"Or maybe not..." Carlos put a determined look on his face, and they started running again.

Quickly they went into the lab. Outside of a few broken windows, it was unharmed.

Carlos pulled a slice of Wheat-Free Pizza, thrown at them by the giant, man-eating Pizza Blob that came out of Big Rico's to capture them, out of his hair. Cecil noticed this and immediately started cleaning the cheese remains out of Carlos' hair.

"Cecil! Saving Night Vale now, hair later!" Carlos said, not for the first time. "Come on! This is going to help us." He went towards a half finished device on the table, turned around and saw Cecil's disappointed face. "Something is very wrong in Night Vale, you said so yourself."

"Yes, yes... rescuing the community from the clutches of this unknown menace is more important than your h... your... then your ha-" he paused, "-more important than anything. I'm sorry, Carlos," he said to his boyfriend, who was busy finishing up his device.

It looked like it was made mostly from household items; a vacuum cleaner, a few lamps, a small computer screen and a balloon – although from inside it, Cecil could hear the humming and buzzing of the various scientific devices Carlos kept in his lab, which Cecil was never quite sure what they did but they were still fascinating.

Carlos looked very pleased with himself, checking to see if any sort of crazy things were going to attack his new device. "This is supposed to-" he then looked around nervously. "Remember what I told you this morning? About the energy that I believe holds Night Vale together?" For the sake of his lab, he avoided explaining more about his theory. "This is going to cancel that energy," he petted the device affectionately, "just temporarily, so it won't do any permanent damage to Night Vale, but we will still be able to defend ourselves."

Carlos wondered how he could test whether it would work, then realized that he knew the answer to that question. "SO, ABOUT MY THEORY!" he shouted.

The giant pizza hand broke through the wall and tried to grab them. Carlos aimed the device at the creature. Without anything like a flash of light, or a glowing energy wave, the hand shook and turned into sand.

"Sand? That's… not what I expected." Carlos handed over the device to Cecil and carefully touched the sand. It felt like real sand, although that wasn't saying much, since a few moments ago it felt like a real giant wheat-free pizza monster.

Suddenly the sand shifted again into a solid form. Carlos didn't even have time to blink before he was grabbed by the giant disembodied hand. Cecil aimed the device at the thing and it turned back into sand.

"Keep it on!" Carlos shouted and moved back as fast as he could. "I don't understand! That should've worked!" he bumped into one of the tables, picked some of his notes and checked them.

"It did-"

"No! It should've neutralized the energy effect longer!" Carlos yelled at himself. "Something is wrong here!"

Suddenly Cecil's phone started ringing.

"Oh, that's Intern Charlie," Cecil said. "I guess Station Management wants me to do a special report. Carlos, do you mind answering it for me? We shouldn't anger Management."

Carlos answered the phone and a young voice on the other side said, "Cecil, you fool. Just give up on him and get everything back to how it's supposed to be." Then Carlos noticed that the phone started heating up and quickly threw it to the ground, where it exploded.

"Oh..." Cecil said. "That's the third one this month..."

Carlos wondered if he meant the intern or the phone. Probably the phone; interns died at a much faster rate.

The city shook again.

"Um, Carlos… this theory of yours…" Cecil said, worriedly.

"I don't know! It should've worked!" Carlos stopped for a second and threw his notes away "I'm such an idiot! I was so sure I was on to something I… arrgh!" He sat down and rested his head on the table. "…idiot…" he mumbled.

"Carlos…" Cecil looked at him, he really wanted to go and comfort Carlos. But he had that curious piece of sand to keep in check and-

Suddenly the sand disappeared. Cecil didn't notice because he was too busy with Carlos, but the chaos outside the lab calmed down.

_Just enough to give him and Carlos some time, but not too much to make it obvious like last time._

Carlos noticed Cecil's hand stroking his back, he looked up.

"I'm sorry for dragging you all the way here, I was just…everything seemed to come together for a second," Carlos said, "but, I think my theory is incorrect."

Suddenly everything went quiet.

"Wait, I think it actually-?" Cecil started. Everything went crazy again, and judging from the intensity of the screaming and other noises outside, it was worse than before. Several things flew over their heads, but were not really attempting to hurt, or even capture them.

"I… think that… whatever is doing all of this, is upset," Carlos said. "It thought that I was on to something, too. So it just wasted its time trying to stop me from telling you my theory."

There was another shriek. Actually, it sounded more like hundreds of shrieks, like every citizen in Night Vale was screaming as loud as they could, which was only supposed to happen on special occasions like weddings, or an 85% sale on dairy products at the Ralph's.

"You know, Carlos, I'm still pretty curious about that theory of yours." Cecil smiled an incredibly dorky smile. "You implied that I was… pretty central to its main idea."

"Yes, well. My theory WAS-" Carlos emphasized the last word as much as he could. They both flinched, but nothing happened. "-that this town is like one living creature. The energy readings I've picked up are part of what connects it all together. But it creates too much energy, so it focuses on a certain person to balance itself. I thought you were this person. That Night Vale used you, and possibly the other radio announcers before you, to balance itself. And that the chaos in the town was because you left and made Night Vale go off balance. But if THAT was true, things should've been fixed by now. So I think-"

Carlos noticed suddenly that Cecil had returned to worryingly and gently cleaning up bits of cheese and sand out of Carlos' hair.

"Hair. Later. Cecil." Cecil sighed sadly. "When we finish saving Night Vale, I promise you'll get to wash my hair tonight"

"Really?" Cecil squealed in happiness.

"Oh, yeah. And you can shampoo it" Carlos gave Cecil his device. It might not have been as effective as Carlos had thought, but at least it did something. He also kept some weapons at his lab just in case, although he hoped it would never come to this. He didn't actually know how to use them and he would probably look really pathetic if he tried to. Still, he tucked a gun into his lab coat pocket, and several protection spells Cecil had recommended to him into the other one. "But right now, we have a town to save… " they started walking to the main door, "and I don't even know where-"

Carlos opened the door and realized that his lab was actually floating, perhaps 20 meters from the ground. Night Vale was still glitchy, and several other buildings were also floating.

"The library would be a good place to start!" Cecil said happily and pointed to the building, which was indeed close enough to the lab that they could jump to it. "Normally, I would have said we should avoid it, but…" he shrugged, "librarians are really not as bad as some of the other things we had to deal with today." Cecil was still pretty excited about saying "we". For a change, he and his Carlos were actually going on a Night-Vale saving adventure together, instead of him having to stay behind.

Carlos agreed, and with slight difficulty, the two jumped to the entrance of the library. Cecil opened the doors. Inside the library was even more badly lit then usually and it looked abandoned, which wasn't unusual. Librarians are good at sneaking.

"Remember, if we do meet a librarian, we should both cut off one of our arms and offer them as gifts," Cecil said, using his phone as a flashlight. "There's a 67% chance they'll accept it and leave us alone, okay?"

"Yes, Cecil, you tell me that every time I go to the library…" Carlos answered.

"I'm just worried-WAIT!" Cecil suddenly shouted, "I haven't thought about what we should do if the librarian accepts one offering, but not the other…" He pondered for a second. "Carlos! We should totally connect the remaining arm to the other person!" He waited for an excited reaction from Carlos. "Like, if the librarian doesn't eat my arm, you could have it and if your arm doesn't get eaten, I would get it! Isn't that, like, the most romantic thing ever?"

"I don't think we'll meet a librarian. I think this place really is abandoned" Carlos replied, and then noticed the books. There was something wrong. "I'm pretty sure those books weren't here before…" He took one off the shelf. "'The Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre'? Have you seen this book here before?"

"Oh Carlos, you know I don't like all those hyper-realistic stories," Cecil rolled his eyes. "But… I don't think I ever saw this book before…" his head started to hurt again,"…anywhere"

Carlos took a closer look at the book; it was in bad shape, but not in the usual Night Vale Public Library way. Yes, there was an occasional blood splatter, but mostly it just had slightly torn pages (not shredded with claws, just a bit torn) and silly doodles. Normal things you could find in any "favorite book" of a child or teenager. He had a few books like that, mostly the "Young Scientist" types of books. It was hard to read the text with only the light from his phone but from what he could tell, it was indeed just a normal collection of Lovecraft stories. Carlos browsed through the pages, looking for something unusual and then stopped at the first page.

On the first page, someone had written a name. Presumably someone who once owned the book and wanted people to know whose it was in case it ever got lost. Someone had written, "Cecil G. Palmer."

"You… never saw this book before?" Carlos asked.

Cecil grabbed the book and looked at the cover. "No" he gave Carlos the book back "why?"

"Well…" Carlos was starting to think about what to tell Cecil, when he noticed the book was suddenly replaced by a brain dripping blood. Carlos automatically threw it away in disgust. They both looked around, confused, then the library suddenly blinked out of existence and was replaced by something else.

Something similar, but blood-soaked, and filled with bright, smiling shapes.


End file.
